


Callum Highway and the Prisoner of Azkaban

by TWCooper



Series: Band of Gold [5]
Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Father Figures, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Harry Potter References, M/M, Reading, Sick Character, ballum - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 22:43:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21216257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWCooper/pseuds/TWCooper
Summary: Callum's looking after Lexi while she's sick in bed. Sometimes the best family isn't the one your born with, but the one you make for yourself





	Callum Highway and the Prisoner of Azkaban

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but if you haven't read it by this point I think we can all gather that you're never going too.

Callum knocked gently on the door, taking Lexi’s mournful moan as a sign to come in. She was curled up in bed with a thoroughly grumpy look on her face. Some trashy show was playing on her laptop, but she shut it down as he walked into the room.

“How you feeling sweetheart?” Callum asked, earning him a scathing look.

“Like the toilet I spent this morning throwing up into,” she said, making a concerted effort to sound pathetic.

Callum sat on the edge of the bed, stroking her head like he used to when she was still a little girl. She was almost a teenager now, as she kept reminding all her parents, but at times like this – stuck in bed, recovering from a bout of stomach flu – he couldn’t help but feel protective over his baby daughter.

“You manage to keep anything down?” he asked.

Lexi pulled a face at the glass of apple juice he’d left on the side.

“Think you could try? For me.”

She rolled her eyes but sat up to gently sip at the glass. Hopefully the sugar would keep her going until she could manage something more substantial.

“Was that your Mum you were talking to just now?”

Lexi nodded, but she was purposefully not looking at him. That was father’s patented move for when he was trying to pretend he didn’t care about something he cared about deeply.

“You know she wishes she was over here,” Callum said.

“Yeah,” said Lexi. “But they can’t risk Jase getting sick.”

So that was the problem – Mum was putting the new baby before her. Callum stroked Lexi’s cheek.

“Come here,” he said, wrapping her up in his long arms. “Your Mum loves you. She’s been texting me every three minutes asking after you. In fact, I think I just felt my phone go again and that’ll be her. But right now Jase needs her and she knows you’re going to be alright because you’ve got me and your Dad looking after you.”

She snuggled into his shoulder. Callum wondered how many more years of this he had left before she got too old for hugs with her dads.

“I know. Just sucks,” she said, pulling away and flopping back onto her pillows. “I’m so bored. I can’t play on my phone without feeling sick. Same with Netflix. And my book. I was just getting to a good bit.”

Callum’s old Harry Potter books were piled up on her side table. He’d not so subtly left them there a few months ago when she’d mentioned talking about the first one in school. Prisoner of Azkaban was sat on top.

“Ahh, that one’s my favourite,” said Callum, picking up the book. “I must have read bits of this one a hundred times.”

Callum quickly checked her bookmark to see where she’d got to – just after Buckbeak’s ‘execution’. He could see why she was annoyed.

“I can tell,” said Lexi. “Half the pages are falling out.”

The spine was cracked from years of use. Callum let the book fall open, revealing the pages he’d read over and over as a kid. It was near the end, where Harry had just learned the truth about Sirius. 

_‘But… well… think about it. Once my name is cleared… if you wanted a… different home…’_

_Some sort of explosion took place in the pit of Harry’s stomach._

_‘What – live with you?’_

The words were almost worn away from years of his finger brushing over them, willing his own wizard god-father to come crashing into his life and whisk him away.

“Why d’you like it so much?” she asked.

“Well, this one’s all about escaping innit?” he said, running his fingers down the spine. “The Marauder’s Map, sneaking out to Hogsmead, the beginning where Harry runs off and goes to live in Diagon Alley. See my Dad wasn’t like your Dad-”

“Dads,” Lexi corrected him. “I’ve got three of you.”

“And my Dad wasn’t like any of us,” said Callum. “He was more like… more like Uncle Vernon. But me being Harry, not Dudley. I used to dream about walking outside and flag down the Knight Bus. I made do with reading these in my own cupboard under the stairs.”

Technically, it had been a wardrobe. According to Jonno Highway reading was for ‘girls and gays’. There was more than one closet Callum had been shoved into by his dear old Dad.

“I used to pretend my torch was a wand,” he said. “Even said _lumos _as I switched it on.”

“Nerd,” said Lexi. She wasn’t wrong.

“I liked to think I was a Harry,” said Callum, “but I think deep down I knew I was really a Neville. Always bungling things up, getting it wrong. Then again, by Book 7-”

“Hey!” said Lexi. “Spoilers! Haven’t read them yet, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “See what I mean. Total Neville.”

“Good,” she said. “I like Neville. But you’re not a Neville. You are Mrs Weasley.”

The confidence with which she said it made Callum feel like it was some absolute decree, and that his hair was about to start turning ginger.

“What makes you so sure?” he asked. “Is this just because I’m being a mother hen, looking after you while you’re sick?”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s because you care. Like, actually care. About everyone. Me. Dad. Bobby. Even Uncle Stewart and Uncle Ian and no one cares about them. You’re always looking after everyone, cooking enough food to feed 500 people and you treat people like family even when they ain’t. Especially when it’s people like Harry who don’t have a family to care about them like they should.”

Callum felt the catch in his breath as he looked down at the book in his hands. She could be a royal pain in his backside at times, too much of her hellion parents in her to be anything but, but God he loved her all the same. 

“Molly Weasley,” he said, trying to keep the shake of emotion out of his voice. “I can take that. Especially the bit in Deathly Hallows where she-”

“Spoilers!”

“Well then you need to hurry up and finish the books so I can talk about them with you,” he said, pointing at her with the book accusingly. “You know everyone around here only ever watched the movies and they miss out so much.”

Lexi pouted at him. “I want to, but every time I look at the page the words go all wobbly and it makes me want to throw up again.”

“Well in that case…”

Callum clambered into the bed with her, pulling her up against his side before reaching over to her bedside lamp.

“_Lumos_,” he said, flicking it on. Lexi let out an exasperated sigh, but settled in closer to his side all the same. He cracked open the book to where her bookmark was and began to read.

“Chapter Seventeen. Cat, Rat and Dog. Harry’s mind had gone blank with shock.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm planning on doing another couple of installments in this series, but the next one is going to be a bigger, multi-chapter affair so it will take me a while to get out. But I do have every intention of carrying the series on for a little while as people seem to like it.


End file.
